Israel advances to protect its borders with Syria, and Trump calls Turkey a "key player in shaping the post-Assad political landscape."

The transfer marks the end of an era when Russia played an arguably oversized role in determining which countries could operate in Syria’s contested airspace.

Israeli fighter jets have launched hundreds of airstrikes, while soldiers have seized a buffer zone and captured military posts in territory formerly under Syrian control.

Ankara's growing military presence in Syria has led to a diplomatic clash between former allies Israel and Turkey. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has supported Hamas, even hinting at some sort of armed intervention.

The Assad regime’s abrupt collapse has thrust America’s long-standing military mission in Syria into uncertainty, as the Pentagon’s chief battlefield partner fights for survival and a U.S. leader skeptical of foreign military commitments prepares to retake power.

Assad’s fall to bomb all the Syrian military assets it wanted to keep out of the rebels’ hands – striking nearly 500 targets, destroying the navy, and taking out, it claims, 90% of Syria’s known surface-to-air missiles.

Jolani, urged Israel to stop airstrikes after a bomb so powerful it reportedly measured on the Richter scale was dropped on Syria

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israeli troops will remain in Syrian territory indefinitely, and that blurs the border with Israel's northern neighbor.

Israel said it had wiped out the vast majority of the Syrian military's assets, including huge chunks of its air-defense network.

The Israeli military hit weapons depots and air defenses, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Israel has said it aims to keep military equipment away from extremists.

Israel is celebrating the fall of Assad because it breaks the noose that Iran had been patiently tightening around Israel’s borders in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria. Tehran’s pincer is now broken and rendered useless. From the point of view of Israel’s wider conflict with the Islamic Republic, the collapse of Assad’s regime is a strategic victory.

Security sources have stated that Israeli forces in Syria have reached the southern city of Qatana, around 16 miles from Damascus.